Video from polar bear's neck cam shows life on ice

Jun 07, 2014 by Dan Joling

Screen capture of the first polar bear point of view footage. The raw footage was recorded by a camera equipped radio collar that was put on a female polar bear in the Beaufort Sea during April 2014 by the US Geological Survey. Credit: US Geological Survey

The first video of life on Arctic sea ice from a polar bear point of view has been released by the U.S. Geological Survey.

The agency on Friday released a clip recorded by a camera attached to the collar of a female polar bear without cubs in the Beaufort Sea north of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. The necks of polar bear males are wider than their heads and collars slide off.

The clip shows the bear pursuing a seal under water, dunking a frozen seal into seawater and interacting with a male who might be a suitor.

The cameras are part of a study to find out how polar bears, listed as a threatened species, are responding to sea ice loss from global warming. Scientists in the Beaufort are generally limited to about six weeks of field work each spring, between the time it's light enough to work and before ice begins to break up.

"It's all information that we wouldn't be able to get otherwise," said Todd Atwood, research leader for the USGS Polar Bear Research Program, from his office in Anchorage.

The collars were attached in April and collected eight to 10 days later as a test run of how they eventually will be deployed for longer periods. Cameras were attached to two bears in 2013, but the batteries could not handle Arctic temperatures, Atwood said.

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Redesigned collars were attached to four females that already were going to be captured for blood samples on a study of behavior and energy expenditure led by USGS research biologist Anthony Pagano. The bears already carry collars with GPS recording data and accelerometers, an activity sensor that records whether a bear is resting, walking, swimming or hunting.

The USGS is part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Polar Bear Recovery Team that will draft a Polar Bear Conservation Management Plan to meet requirements of the Endangered Species Act. The law requires the plan to guide activities for polar bear conservation.

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Antigoracle, where's your evidence that the climate change is NOT occurring? Do you need to personally observe extinction of polar bears and zero arctic ice before you are convinced of global warming-- and at that point will you still deny that the causes are anthropic? Are you also an adamant denier of evolution and the theory that the Earth is billions of years old? These ideas all seem to be part of a common world-view which simultaneously baffles and frustrates me..

Wait!! You have no understanding of THE AGW and how it E ffects the ice caps.

Quick someone give this guy an education.

If I did not find them funny I would cry at their ignorance. So, I love it when these AGW Chicken Littles come here to profess their intelligence by exposing their illiteracy.Seriously sirchick, if you got an education, then someone needs to ask for their money back.

If I did not find them funny I would cry at their ignorance. So, I love it when these AGW Chicken Littles come here to profess their intelligence by exposing their illiteracy.

@antigiven your lack of empirical data and the fact that all you did was interject opinion and unsubstantiated personal conjecture with no evidence, then I would say that you are the one exposing your illiteracy and it is WE who should cry at YOUR ignorance (I am sure most already LAUGH at it)

if you got an education, then someone needs to ask for their money back.

you must have been home-schooled by those creation idiots to ignore the empirical data in front of you

Here is your opportunity: provide irrefutable empirical evidence showing warming does NOT exist and that the past 100 years is a fluke. I would think you could get a Nobel out of that... get your paper published in a peer reviewed journal! since you are so sure, it should be easy, with your education and all....

Hey anti, how come you don't answer Seareut's questions? What evidence do you have that global warming is NOT occurring? Do you understand what the scientific burden of evidence is? It's another term used for the scientific method. It's where evidence is gathered using data acquiring techniques that provides new knowledge into physical phenomena. The data must be both empirical (i.e. observation or experimentation), and measurable. For the past 100 years, the scientific community has been gathering empirical data on global climate.

Empirical data is inherently unbiased. Do you understand why that is? It does not have bias, because it is data from observation. Now, in order to make sense of that empirical data (i.e. observations), the science community has put fourth a theory. In this context, a theory has a very strict definition. A scientific theory is a well substantiated explanation of the natural world confirmed by empirical evidence. (cont.)

If a data set of empirical evidence does NOT correlate with that theory, than said theory is thrown out, and replaced with a new explanation of the natural world.

Now please, provide us with EMPIRICAL evidence that the planet is not warming, or, that the warming is not caused by humans. Also, provide a theory that fits your empirical data, as well as ALL of the data of the previous 100 years. Please do so in a concise scientific thesis, and have it peer reviewed in any of the accredited scientific journals.

Oh, also, you'll likely want a Ph.D. in climatology. Not because you need one of course, if you're an amazing self learner, than congrats. But theirs a lot of techniques/previous bodies of knowledge that you'll likely need to formulate your thesis. Goodluck!!

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